Data relocation in global storage cloud environments

Abstract

Methods and systems for data relocation in global storage cloud environments are provided. A method includes locating a data server near a travel location of a user based on one or more travel plans of the user. The method further includes transferring data of the user from a home data server near a home location of the user to the data server near the travel location.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A method of data relocation in global storage cloud environments, comprising:
 providing a computer system, being operable to: 
 mapping a user device to a home data server to store data of a user; 
 locating a data server near a travel location of the user based on one or more travel plans of the user, the one or more travel plans include one or more final travel locations and one or more intermediate travel locations including temporary locations the user travels prior to reaching the one or more final travel locations including a stopover or a layover; 
 locating the one or more intermediate travel locations during a user's travels using online travel web sites; 
 indexing and sorting one or more user-defined policies based on an owner and class of each policy of the one or more policies; 
 accessing the one or more user-defined policies by a primary key which includes an owner and a class of a desired policy out of the one or more user-defined policies; 
 filtering data from the stored data based on the one or more user-defined policies to determine which stored data is to be transferred; and 
 transferring the filtered data from the home data server near a home location of the user to the data server near the travel location. 
 
     
     
       2. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the data server is a nearest data server to the travel location. 
     
     
       3. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the travel location is one of the one or more final travel locations and the one or more intermediate travel locations, of the user during travel. 
     
     
       4. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising receiving the one or more travel plans from at least one of a user calendar and one or more travel planner tools. 
     
     
       5. The method of  claim 4 , wherein the user sets the one or more travel plans in at least one of the user calendar and the one or more travel planner tools. 
     
     
       6. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the transferring of the filtered data further comprises at least one of migrating and replicating the filtered data from the home data server to the data server near the travel location. 
     
     
       7. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the transferring of the filtered data is performed one of before and after the user travels to the travel location. 
     
     
       8. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the user-defined policies additionally comprise at least one of:
 one or more travel locations where the file may be relevant for use; 
 one or more blacklist locations where the digital data file cannot be transferred; 
 costs for data transfer; 
 a transfer time of the digital data file; and 
 an indication of whether the digital data file is to be at least one of migrated and replicated from the home data server to the data server near the travel location. 
 
     
     
       9. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising fetching data from the home data server when the data is required by the user for use at the travel location but is unavailable from the transferred data. 
     
     
       10. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising transferring the transferred data from the data server near the travel location back to the home data server after the user accesses the transferred data. 
     
     
       11. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising migrating the data of the user from the home data server to the data server near the travel location so that certain data of the user can only be replicated at the data server near the travel location while avoiding migration of the certain data of the user back to the home data server. 
     
     
       12. A system for data relocation in global storage cloud environments, the system comprising:
 a computer system operable to:
 map a device of a user to a home data server to store user digital data files; 
 receive one or more travel plans of a user from one or more online travel planner tools including online travel web sites, the travel plans including one or more final travel locations and one or more intermediate travel locations including temporary locations the user travels prior to reaching the one or more final travel locations including a stopover or a layover, and one or more travel times including flight departure, layover, and arrival times; 
 receive one or more user-defined policies of the user digital data files from a policy database, each of the user-defined policies indicating a relevance of each of the user digital data files for use at a travel location of the user; 
 categorize the user digital data files based on the one or more user-defined policies; 
 locate the travel location during a user's travels using the online travel web sites; 
 locate a data server near the travel location of the user based on the one or more travel plans; 
 transfer the user digital data files from the home data server to the data server near the travel location based on the one or more user-defined policies of each of the user digital data files; 
 determine whether a user digital data file required by the user is present in the transferred user digital data files; and 
 fetch and migrate the required user digital data file not present in the migrated user digital data files from the home data server to the data server near the travel location. 
 
 
     
     
       13. The system of  claim 12 , wherein the data server is a nearest data server to the travel location. 
     
     
       14. The system of  claim 12 , wherein the transferring of the user digital data files further comprises at least one of migrating and replicating the user digital data files from the home data server to the data server near the travel location. 
     
     
       15. The system of  claim 12 , wherein the travel location is one of the one or more final travel location and the one or more intermediate travel locations, of the user during travel. 
     
     
       16. The system of  claim 12 , wherein the user-defined policies comprise:
 one or more travel locations where the file may be relevant for use; 
 one or more blacklist locations where the digital data file cannot be transferred; 
 costs for data transfer; 
 a transfer time of the digital data file; and 
 an indication of whether the digital data file is to be at least one of migrated and replicated from the home data server to the data server near the travel location. 
 
     
     
       17. The system of  claim 16 , wherein the user-defined policies further comprise:
 a key which includes an owner and a class associated with the user digital data files; 
 a comma separated list of locations for which the user digital data files are relevant and required; and 
 a comma separated list of locations for which the user digital data files cannot be accessed. 
 
     
     
       18. A computer program product comprising a tangible computer usable storage medium having readable program code embodied in the tangible computer usable storage medium, the computer program product includes at least one component operable to:
 determine one or more user-defined policies of data of a user, each of the one or more user-defined policies indicating a relevance of the user data for use at a travel location of the user and include (i) an owner of a digital data file including a user identifier (ID) associated with the file, (ii) a class of a digital data file based on file contents comprising confidentiality, semantic content and metadata, and (iii) one or more travel locations where a digital data file may be relevant or used during travel; 
 locate the travel location during a user's travels by utilizing an online travel web site; 
 locate a data server near the travel location based on one or more travel plans of the user received from one or more online travel planner tools, the travel plans including one or more final travel locations and one or more intermediate travel locations including temporary locations the user travels prior to reaching the one or more final travel locations including a stopover or a layover, and one or more travel times including flight departure, layover, and arrival times, the one or more final travel locations and the one or more intermediate travel locations being stored in the online travel web site; and 
 transfer the user data from a home data server near a home location of the user to the data server near the travel location based on the one or more user-defined policies. 
 
     
     
       19. The computer program product of  claim 18 , wherein the at least one component is further operable to receive the one or more travel plans from a user calendar. 
     
     
       20. The computer program product of  claim 18 , wherein the at least one component is further operable to map a user device of the user to the home data server to store the user digital data files.